


episode 1 : "Karnaca"

by homoeroticsubtextinspace



Series: Karnaca [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Destiny, F/F, Gay, IN SPACE!, Multi, Post-Game: Destiny 2, Setting the stage, Space Opera, Spaceships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26284729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homoeroticsubtextinspace/pseuds/homoeroticsubtextinspace
Summary: Setting the stage for this serie about how to live as a found family among the stars. big disclaimer i want my characters to be happy. will they? damn right!  but there will be hardship too.there will be fluff(maybe not too much in this episode) but probably no depiction of sex because i can't write that without going like "annd then... tey KIss n hold... hands"there will be drama, but not too muchthere will be Friendships, because we are not made to go alone.there will be some heavy stuff toothere will be space exploration because i dig that shit like you wouldn't believethere will be reference to stuffthere will be overly specific explanations of some of the stuff they encounter because I'm always frustrated about not having enough.I want you to know that the future episodes (most of them are mostly written already) will have a different pace, more dialogue and a less omnipotent narration, this one is specific because i need the universe to be well set before going on about other stuff.I am very open (not to say starving) to constructive criticism so DO NOT HESITATENotes are at the end , very detailed notes , in case you've never heard of destiny :)
Relationships: Ana Bray/Female Guardian (Destiny)
Series: Karnaca [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909798
Kudos: 1





	episode 1 : "Karnaca"

The actual timeline since the collapse is never explicitly stated but it is at least a thousand years and we have recorded events lasting "centuries" so i decided the year would be 3062 of the gregorian calendar (so i have a base to date events) even if they don't use this calendar. 

They use the city calendar, and for them it is organised this way :  
2024--2329: golden age (ending with the collapse)  
2329--2509 : dark ages  
2509--3061: city age  
3061--present: age of rebirth /new golden age

So they are in the second year if the age of rebirth/ new golden age

-Another negative, this is the twelfth time …

-go on, say it, you don’t think we're going to find anything on Enceladus.

Akai put her hands on her waist , looking up from her device to look at her ghost .  
Oganok was hovering a meter ahead of her, uneasy, he was pretty sure he was right about this but he knew his guardian enough to know she was pretty annoying when she had an idea, she just needed to see it through.

-that’s exactly what I think! This moon is of no interest to the hive, the ones frozen on mars were there only because of Rasputin!

\- Anya asked me to check it out if i had time so WE are checking it out!

They had been exploring the glaciers on enceladus for three days now, setting up camp in an old wrecked iceship in the northern region. So far they had visited twelve separate glaciers, scanning under the surface of each one of them , looking for hive ships or even hive tech signatures. So far the only things she had found were dead human bodies , probably dating back to the collapse, either frozen to death after the fall of the cities on Enceladus or just killed in whatever the collapse was.  
They had set up her jumpship to low speed low orbit to scan the surface for unusual patterns or heat/energy signals, linking it directly to the small braytech console she was holding.

They had time to check one more before Saturn obscured the sun and the temperature drops back to minus 198 degrees celsius.

-oh now what do you think that is ?

Oganok answered before even looking at the screen , they were standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking a colossal glacier, enclosed with ice mountains.

-let me guess, more ice?

-no there’s a magnetic field covering some of this ice formation.

-what now? 

He hovered closer to look at the readings on the scanner.

-here, there's a metallic structure carved into the mountain, it’s on a rock cliff, not just ice.

She was pointing at the nearby ice mountain range, just north of the glacier , nothing was visually setting it apart from the global landscape of the moon, just ice, cracks, ice boulders and the occasional crevices.

-Our scanner apparently can't see through the structure, and the shape is pretty geometric, I don't think it’s a ship , it looks more like an underground complex.

-it could be a Warmind complex, they often are buried deep underground

-only one way to find out ! Oganok couldn’t see her smile through the helmet but he knew she was finally excited to be here, the thrill of discovery was a hunter trait afterall.

She jumped back first over the cliff, and while falling materialised her sparrow , a modified hecuba-S (she had removed the safety limits on the engine and added a secondary generator to add some boost, despite the specific direct interdiction of Amanda Holliday)

Her already considerable speed more than tripled as she stepped hard on the gas pedal, leaving a trail of vapor and ice particles behind her.  
The foot of the cliff went down in a slow curve until it reached the glacier, she was almost supersonic when she engaged her ride on the ice plain.  
The light was very quickly fading as Saturn was filling up the sky,

She was having a blast trying to outrun the shadow it casted.  
It took her less than 10 minutes to reach the top of the position where she had discovered the structure.  
Her sparrow disappeared in a light pattern as soon as she jumped off of it, landing in a roll.  
She was standing in front of a huge crevice.

\- can you get me the climbing gear?

-which rope do you want?  
-the 50 will probably be enough, and if it’s not you can still get me another on the fly.

While her ghost was conscientiously transmating her ice climbing equipment from her ship in orbit, she was already busy drilling her anchors into the ice.

-here we go! What do you think we’ll find down there?

-Rasputin’s underwear closet!

They both laughed as she started rappelling down, descending rather slowly at first and then accelerating as she was completely hanging , away from the ice.

It took her eyes a couple of seconds to make sense of what she was seeing.  
She was descending into what looked like a hangar, the crevice she had been descending through was actually the doors of the hangar, slightly ajar, probably from the pressure of ice over the years.  
Careful not to make any noise as to not attract potential enemy forces, she slided down the rope until 10 meters off the ground, where she untied herself and jumped,landing swiftly, her Sunshot already out.  
A quick look at her head up display indicated that the temperature inside the hangar was - 199 degrees celsius, so pretty cold.  
Her vision was now more used to the dark, she was starting to see details better. She was still reluctant to turn on her light to keep the first exploration as stealth as possible, she wanted to avoid conflict as much as possible.

She had no reasons to think the structure was occupied ( because it was clearly human tech, possibly golden age) but she was experienced enough to know that scouting the whole area was always a necessity in order to avoid bad surprises .

She noticed that the ice had siped through the opening , probably over hundreds of years , the hangar was almost entirely covered in snow and ice, the closer to the rooftop doors the thicker. Then a detail caught her eye, a reflexion from a glass surface.

She looked up, a sort of control center was overlooking the hangar.  
A quick double jump and she had reached it, weapon still in hand, she tried the door , Locked.

“Can you unlock it ?” she asked through their telepathic link.

“I feel no current running in any of the cables or systems here, but you might be able to jumpstart the small console here with arc energy long enough for me to override the door mechanism”

She conjured up sparks from her fingertips, sparks that became electric arcs when she put her hand on the insulated cable beneath the console, melting away the insulation, directly reaching the copper wiring.  
The console lighted up briefly, showing incoherent code, long enough for Oganok to infiltrate the software controlling the door.  
“Clac”  
Akai removed her hand from the cable, feeling somewhat bad for the damage she had caused. The lock had been broken but the door was still closed , she picked her sword from her ghost’s inventory to use it as a crowbar , forcing the door open.  
When the door finally gave way , a violent gust of air flew out of it, indicating the sceal had been maintained over the centuries.

The interior was pretty well preserved, with the amount of dust you’d expect from 800 years without cleaning, the first room, the one with the windows overlooking the hangar, was completely empty, not a paper on the floor or a coffee mug on the tables or workstations.

From the emergency evacuation floor plan she could see that she was in the “ hangar 2 security room” , she approached one of the workstations, eyeing the keyboard, after a quick wipe she noticed that the characters were in russian , as were the instructions on the floor plan.

-could very well be a Braytech lab! We know he worked mostly in russian.

She switched her weapon to a roderic C , a small sidearm much more adapted to close quarter firefight and unlike the sunshot, much less likely to damage the installation in case of a missed shot.

\- I located the power generators on the floor plan, wanna take a look, see if we can access some of the data in these computers?

-you bet! 

-It’s after right after “hangar 1” underneath this big room that has no name on it.

After navigating a dedalus of corridors filled with locked doors (which only reinforced Akai’s will to explore the place) she finally reached a flight of stairs descending beneath hangar 1 (she finally had to make oganok shine a light on her path because the complex was completely sealed away from the outside light.) It was almost scary, she thought it exhilarating. Through the smoked windows of some offices she could see computers and a lot of science equipment, but not a single corpse, which was weird from late golden age ruins.  
The air inside the complex was just as cold as the air outside, ice crystals had grown along the walls and some of the pipes running through the complex, which was smaller than she previously thought, and clearly not a warmind installation, the technologies did not match at all. They kept going until a layer of ice slowly curved upward from the floor to end up completely blocking the way.

-we’re just a few meters from the entrance of the engine room, I estimate this ice wall to be around 3 meters thick.  
-Fuck!

-but you can try to stick a grenade on the wall to your left, we are right next to one of the waterline conduits, and from my scans I think you can fit inside.

-what for? I don’t want to get stuck in a wall!

-What are you afraid of? You can literally disintegrate the wall if you want!

-yeah but I don’t like crawling in tight spaces!

Oganok kept grovelling but a bit quieter as he was turning himself back in engram form, while his guardian was materialising a sticky grenade out of light and throwing it at the left wall.

The detonation shook the room , debris from the wall and part of the ceiling flew in every direction, hitting the pipes in the corridor and producing a deflagration so loud the whole complex was now probably aware they had intruders.

When the dust settled, Akai was aiming her weapon at the hole while her ghost was lighting up the scene . the water pipes on the other side of the wall had been vaporised, and bits and pieces of metal and concrete were pretty much everywhere. Oganok was right (as usual) she could easily fit in the small corridor inside the wall, her size was often an advantage in these kind of situations. She thought about her best friend Rosetta, thinking that with her 2m5 she certainly would not have been able to fit the small space . on second thought, she probably just would have plowed through the ice with solar light or even with one of her iron lord axes

Once in the generators room, she noticed that none of them were damaged, they were just shut down, manually from the looks of it, the main power lines had been voluntarily disconnected from the generators and the generators had been separated from their fuel sources.

-this is… weird . Akai had put away her weapon, it was clear at this point that it wasn’t needed. She was standing beside the central hub in the generator rooms, type 5 microfusion generators three of them, this complex was obviously well funded, this tech was very late golden age, in pristine condition, this discovery alone was a great new for the city.

-they just left all of their stuff there, conscientiously leaving, like at the end of a workshift…

-maybe the project was scrapped, or finished, since the hangars are empty.

-or they fled when the early detection devices warned of the incoming threat?

She took a long look at the generators.

-they're missing the fuel cells , can we use the one from my sparrow?

-you feel like walking home then?

-Dorogaya moya , we came here on a SPACESHIP, It’s not like we Have to go back to base camp on foot! Or go back at all.

Once the fuel cell adapted and one of the generators were running, life support quickly came back to the complex, except the parts where the atmospheric seal had broken. The first thing to come back however were the lights, pale white at first and pulsating orange after the system recognized something was wrong.

A loud siren echoed through the room, followed by a voice in russian saying 

“Caution, lockdown is initiated, atmospheric seal broken in floor 3 , hangar 1 , hangar 2. All personnel are to activate the emergency heaters in their room and await further orders.”

Oganok was scanning the power relay terminal next to the main hub, the data was encrypted but he was good enough to get through to search for basic intel on the complex.

-the system thinks hangar 1 is “occupied” , wanna go take a look?

-damn right I do! Do you see anything on who ran this lab? Is it Braytech?

-I see no mention of any overseeing parent organisation, not even a logo, these computers have been wiped clean, the personal files are all gone, and I see 99.8% free space on the server.

Akai was loving this , A mysterious base she had never heard of, no mention of what they were doing here, a hangar possibly filled with exciting tech or even golden age weapons, she was shaking of excitement, vibrating on the spot.

Oganok was looking at his guardian , filled with love, he was so happy to see her this excited, she had been pretty depressed after the red war, her fireteam, STATIC kind of fell apart, they all had their grief, they all lost so much. Their leader, Deidra had pretty much disappeared from the world, probably on one of her “pilgrimages” she did , roaming the world on the trail of the first trip she had taken to get to the city, 200 years ago. Rosetta, her best friend but also her most trusted ally, had been so stricken by the losses she had experienced in the red war that she had declared a personal war on the Legion, she was hunting them down without mercy, exterminating each and every red legion she could come across. She had the support of the vanguard, which was even worse, since when were guardians a military group to be used for post war cleanup? She knew her friend was in a bad place but she could not get through to her, she was broken, she would need time,so Akai was giving her the time she needed.  
Akai had been feeling better after meeting Ana bray, her ghost had noticed that she was quickly falling in love with her,which improved Akai’s mental state immensely.  
So far nothing had happened between them mostly because of his guardian shyness, but he was pushing her to ask her out .

Her behaviour now was showing clear signs of recovery, she had recuperated her ability to get excited at the prospect of the unknown, at the possibility of new discoveries.

The doors to Hangar 1 were sealed shut but it took only a minute or so to the little ghost to get it to open.

While the other hangar had been open from the ceiling , this one had a collapsed wall on the right side probably under the weight of the icecap, where tons and tons of ice had then slowly progressed where they encased most of the hangar.  
In the middle, partially covered in ice , was a spaceship.

The design, as far as they could see, was completely unknown to them, it was clearly not a jumpship, too big to fit this category, but didn’t resemble the transports she had seen in multiple places like on Titan or Venus.

Except for the ice, the ship looked fine, even more than fine, it looked new.

-bolje moi…

For the first time in ages, Akai was speechless.  
The ship was magnificent, the design had a refined geometric finish , the shapes were beautiful, she could not help but stare at it.

Oganok floated to the ship, scanning every centimeters he could access.

-incredible!!! I’ve never seen anything like it! This tech is EXTREMELY advanced!

-can we get in? Without damaging it I mean.

There's an airlock here , he pointed his eye toward a circular door on the front left side of the ship, near the colossal windows that probably housed the bridge or an observation deck. They were tinted and reflecting the environment like a mirror so it was impossible to see through.  
The little ghost flew to the airlock , trying his best to access the system controlling the door.

-It’s unlocked, wait no it’s not even actually closed!

Akai double jumped to the door, planting a knife on the mass of ice next to the airlock.

-you think the ice here broke the door?

-no , it’s structurally sound, I believe it was just left open. Maybe a system malfunction on the ship?  
Akai pushed the door, softly at first , then with more strength as ice was blocking the path of the door inside the ship. 

-didnt come this far to get bamboozeled by a fucking block of ice!

She forced herself through the door, breaking the ice blocking the way. Once inside, she noticed that the ship was not just sitting in ice on the outside , but the inside was also covered in it.

-maybe a geyser went through the wall and liquid water entered the ship by the open airlock?

Akai nodded, she was looking around inside the airlock, her HUD quickly told her that the temperature on the ship was exactly the same as outside.

Once passed the airlock, she noticed that even in this state, the ship was beautifully designed, the walls were embedded with precious wood and rust free metals. Every light switches, portions of floor, ceiling was finely crafted, from the inside it looked more like a hotel than a space ship.the door to her left was covered in platinum inlay representing a sea of stars and a sailship in the middle, with circular graduations akin to that of a compass. On the top of the door was engraved “мостик” in gold letters 

-it’s stunning! She murmured to herself.

-Ive never seen such designs, they are indeed interesting but I don’t understand why a luxury spaceship would be in a scientific complex??

-maybe this is the personal ship of whoever comandited this complex?hey can you scan the door to the bridge? Maybe this baby is still intact!

Oganok obliged , scanning the door, then the wall, then the ceiling, then the rest of the room.

-there is current running through the ship, it’s faint but i feel it.

-Like residual tension or actual running electricity?

The ghost shook his little shell, indicating he wasn’t sure.

-what I do know is that i sense ice in pretty much every room, we’re not visiting today!

-aw man!

She was disappointed but at the same time she felt she had a challenge ahead of her, that would require help. This would be the perfect occasion to get Rosetta out of her vengeance.

-let’s go, we’re going to explore the complex a bit more, see what a ghost as skilled as you can get out of their computers!

The little ghost was sensible to flattery, he would do his best to make his guardian proud.

Crossing the airlock in the other way, Akai noticed that huge letters were painted next to the door. She could make out the beginning of a word, KARN…  
She took out her sunshot and aimed it directly at the ice next to the hull, then shot 12 fiery bullet straight in the ice, exploding a good two meters of ice , and uncovering the rest of the word: KARNACA

\------------------------

They spent another day in the complex afterwards, searching for more data, but most of the logs from the control center and labs had been copied off then erased.

Rooms after rooms, she discovered several human bodies, well conserved in the extremely low temperature, she took time to bury them outside in the rituals of the city (very shallow marked graves so ghosts can still rez the bodies if needed)  
They all had a shoulder patch with a logo showcasing the orbits of Saturn's moons and the words “ PROJECT SKAĐI" embroidered in russian on it .

At first Akai thought maybe she could get valuable information about her former self in the databanks of the complex, but as time passed she realized all the data in the computers were siphoned to a single place, the computer core of the ship before being deleted.

The only clue was an exo body in one of the labs. Even though no damage was visible in his circuits , every attempt made by Oganok to repair and revive him failed.

The guardian and her ghost left to make their report to Ana Bray and to the Vanguard, but left out any mention of the ship or even of the complex, still unsure of who to trust after their shortcomings in the red war and the subsequent crisis. They planned to get back there as much as possible , to get the ice out of the ship

After about a week of making very little progress (Akai was still incapable of using solar light after regaining her powers during the war, which could have made melting the ice an easy task) she brought Rosetta to the site.

The young Titan was extremely impressed by the tech on the ship, which by the looks of it seemed to date back to the very beginning of the collapse , before it was known that the golden age was at an end.  
The ship being such an important discovery, they could not afford to lose it to people like Zavala, categorically refusing to use golden age tech. So they decided they could convert it to a versatile base of operations .

With Rosetta's help, they managed to clean and restore most of the ship's systems, discovering that the ship was actually much much bigger than a jumpship, but even though one of the stations in the bridge was clearly tactical, not really designed for combat either.

It was a 4 deck deep space exploration ship.

\----  
At this point the bridge had been entirely cleared, and it became clear that more than 2 people were needed to operate the ship, so they brought on the final member of their fireteam, the warlock Deidra, reluctantly at first because Akai was scared that because of her old age (Deidra is about 200 years older than Akai and Rosetta) she would choose to inform the Vanguard of this incredible find, and it would mark the end of this project. 

This was however absolutely not the case , as Deidra, distrusting the vanguard since the red war , embraced the project with a lot of enthusiasm.  
She covertly researched anything having to do with SKAĐI in every database she could find but only found the origin of the word in the Ishtar collective archives: it was the name of the ancient norse goddess of snow, bow hunting and skiing. Although she found it quite a funny choice considering the location of the hidden base , she hadn't found any pertinent information about the goal of the project itself or even on the people involved in it.

The exploration of the ship continued and they discovered science labs on the 3rd deck, a hangar with a selective forcefield system to act as airlock on the 4th deck .  
The hangar was big enough to hold Akai's jumpship, the "Terracota" and a side of the hangar was clearly designed to be a mechanical maintenance area that would be perfect for sparrow storage and repair. The other two jumpships would have to be kept as engrams in the ship's memory bank if they wanted to keep them on board.

Late into the restoration project Deidra brought another ghost with her, a guardianless ghost, who often traveled with Deidra searching for his guardian, he was the quiet kind, not speaking much .the ghost, who everyone had nicknamed Ball because of his shell,(his real name being Sobek) spent much of his time roaming around the ship.

To make the work easier and safer, each guardian chose to settle a room each in the habitat ring on deck 1.  
After a quick vote it was decided that if they eventually managed to make the ship space worthy again, Deidra would captain it, as she had the most experience among them. So she took the captain quarters , at the front of the habitat ring, near a vast room designed to be a hydroponics lab.  
Instead of keeping it as a lab, the guardians made it a garden, bringing plants from all over the system, in order to get not only a bit of fresh air when needed, but more importantly some food too .  
The lab is on two decks, accessible from both deck one and two.  
Sobek took great joy in roaming the garden, overseeing the growth of diverse plants and fruits.  
He hitched a ride to Venus with Akai to get venerian plums, Deidra’s favourite fruit , and planted them so she could have them when she wanted.  
Rosetta also took a big red tree from Nessus to put in the middle of the garden .

Deidra brought her library with her and installed it in the starboard lounge, on the crew deck, (since her apartment in the city was destroyed at the end of the red war) and after a while Rosetta did the same with her workshop, getting all of her stuff in the 3rd deck, in a spacious room at the science labs levels .

It was clear that the ship, although designed for deep space exploration, was built to be as comfortable as possible, and the more they explored it , the more they saw that whoever intended to use it had a taste in luxury. There were wood inlays in the metals of the floors and walls , the bridge,CIC ,captain's quarters and lounge had complex murals made of precious wood and meteoritic metals.

Blacksmith noticed that the mural in the CIC (combat information center) represented the positions of every planet/moons/celestial bodies at a specific moment, with a bit of math and knowledge of the solar system he was able to find out the exact date represented on the mural: exactly 738 years and seven months ago. What this date is supposed to represent was however unclear.

The whole stern (back) of the first deck (crew deck) was a 2 story lounge with a swimming pool at the end, facing a large screen that acted as a window when power was on.  
In engineering there was a matter reprocessing plant, big enough to manufacture spare parts on the go, the crew used it to change a bit of the decoration or reequip engineering with the tools needed for sparrow and jumpship maintenance. 

Seeing no use for this much space, Akai thought that the lower lounge could be converted into a dojo, for hand to hand combat training , while the upper lounge was left as such, with a billiard , holo screen , bar and a weird looking piano.  
The entrance of the bridge was decorated with two big wooden sculpture (weirdly enough, the wood did not match any known species of tree) representing a bird and a lion, as a gift for crimson days, Akai had the bird changed from a corvid to a hawk (the symbol of warlocks) for a little surprise to Deidra by a woodworker in the last city. She enjoyed the gift immensely and the newly sculpted hawk now adorns the left side of the entrance to the bridge.

Deidra had been training them in hand to hand combat for several years now, and the events of the red war reinforced her conviction that guardians should learn to fight without depending on their ability to be resurrected.

Indeed as a kindergardian, Deidra spent several years with human hunters and nomads, before meeting guardians, and this experience taugh her retreat and cover as base survival skills, in the 203 years since her awakening, she had only been killed 3 times, mostly because she knows when to strike and when to fuck off. (Also because she's an extremely skilled combatant and the enemy often isn't as powerful)

In the main engineering room they discovered 2 frames , visibly combat frames . These 2 frames were nicknamed "Charles" and "Michael" by Rosetta, and after a while everyone referred to them by these names.  
Reactivating the frames was easier than the Exo ,and once active again, the two frames began telling what they knew about the ship and the facility, which wasn't that much, as all the scientists were very secretive about the work they were doing here. And with reason, since they were composed of scientists from the Ishtar collective , Clovis Bray Exoscience (an association forbidden by the two organisations) and a third organization whose name wasn't on any document.  
The third investor was more mysterious , the frames only knew that they had considerable resources and technologies, and were specialised in weaponry.  
These two frames were brought to the facility as security forces during the initial phase of the project, and after a while, as it became clear that the facility was too well hidden to be found , Charles (his actual designation being 95- 32) was reprogrammed as a chef for the facility, working in the mess hall. Both frames were quite fond of the names the guardians chose for them since before that the scientists and technicians treated them like tools to be discarded, refusing to give them actual names.

Michael turned out to be programmed with a woman's voice, she thought the name Michael was lovely and wanted to keep it, as her official designation was only numbers, and she hated that.  
She kept her original security programing , and as a dawning gift, Rosetta gave her a copy of Dahlia 99-40's combat protocols and tactical memories (she "illegally" downloaded them after cayde's death as a personal precaution in case she needed to build frames for the city) making her one of the most experienced active combat frames in the system.  
Another frame was discovered in the complex, damaged , presumably by the collapse of the ceiling on top of them (the frame was inactive, next to the remains of three humans, all partially encased in ice)

The body parts were unfamiliar to the team, but clearly this frame was not built for combat, their chassis way lighter than usual, and their limbs more finely crafted.  
Both Michael and Charles recalled seeing this frame in the labs sometimes, she was built here, not brought like the two of them, but they never talked or even knew what it was called or what was its role.

The last room inaccessible in the ship was the reactor and computer core, although not because of the ice, as none was present in these heavily shielded rooms . The door to the core was locked manually by the people before they abandoned the project, and it's encryption was strong enough to baffle 4 ghosts .  
As the ship was still running on emergency power, a lot of subsystems were still dormant. And to reboot the reactor, direct access to the core was necessary.

Akai , probably out of frustration ,took on the habit to vent her problems out loud when she was alone, and she spent a Lot of time alone in engineering trying to open this door.  
She wasn't really talking to anybody, but her conversation style made it look like she was in a full conversation with someone else. One day it was about their last patrol, another day it was about Ana and how she had finally worked out the courage to ask her on dates, talking about how nice her hair smelled and how fun she was to be around.

One day , as she was talking about how much Deidra and Rosetta changed her life for the better, the door opened itself.  
A voice told Akai that she could come in now, that the time of fear and suspicion was over.  
In the core , a large spherical room, was what looked like a type 9 micro fusion reactor but a 100 time smaller , embedded in the layers of the walls, and in the middle , an esoteric moving sculpture of metal, wires and condensators.

At first she thought the voice she heard was some kind of fatigue induced hallucination (frequent among guardians) .  
The power relays were visibly turning themselves on one after the other, and after a minute , the whole room was buzzing with energy. Oganok appeared over her shoulder to tell her that both of her teammates were hailing her, to ask her why all the systems were suddenly lighting up, and then the voice spoke again, welcoming Akai .  
The thing she had taken for a sculpture was the central core of a very sophisticated AI , responsible for a majority of systems onboard the ship.

-My name is INTENDANT for" INdependenT dEfense aNd Differential Analysis Neural maTrix" . I'm very sorry it took me so long to overcome my last instruction.  
Dr Nadejda Pavlovna , the lead scientist of this facility, and my mother, issued me the command to hide all signs of activity and cease all contacts. She was scared. I remember, terrified, something had happened , but I never knew what, until I pieced it together from your stories.  
She was supposed to come back, finish me, get me my last component, but she never came back. I don't think she ever will now.  
I was created to be the backup source of curiosity on this ship, to analyse and discover new worlds to settle or to learn from!"

Akai was on her knees,out of breath, a real AI , a relic from the far golden age, fully functional! The rest of the team appeared in the room, and INTENDANT presented herself again to the two guardians.  
Rosetta noted that the reactor core was unlike anything she had ever seen, even SIVA couldn't generate that much power in such a small space, it was beyond all reason, especially for a ship that size.

the AI said she was missing a key component in order to be able to fly the ship and use the 3D (a term the guardians weren't sure what she was referring to)  
She said that a full scan of the facility revealed a compatible neural net she could fuse to her systems.  
What she wanted was the body of the Exo from the complex.  
At first Rosetta thought what she wanted was the quantum black box of the Exo, so she could integrate it into her own, but she told them to hook up the whole body to her main computer interface. It stayed that way for 4 days, showing no signs of activation , while being technically fully functional

It woke screaming ,Scaring the hell out of everyone who was working in engineering. It wasn't a scream of pain or fright, just excitement, as it's first words were "Astonishing! hands!!!"

The EXO was Just a physical extension of INTENDANT , made to operate on the bridge as a link between organic and synthetic on the ship.  
Although not a separate being ,the exo chose to be called Numiri, as INTENDANT was the acronym of the AI , and more of a title than a name in Her Eyes.  
Even though the body was an Exo male, INTENDANT core personality and voice were based on the woman who programmed her.  
The crew refer to them mostly as "They/them”

Deidra thought from the start that INTENDANT was hiding some things from them, not necessarily threatening but still rather concerning.  
Like what happened to the team of scientists and programmers left in the base, since they all seemingly died from exposure to the Enceladus's atmosphere, why didn’t they escape with the others , what was in the second hangar, why was the ship left finished at 99% and then abandoned, why not even one paper document was left in the complex...  
She also noticed INTENDANT’s knowledge of post collapse events was surprisingly accurate , more than it should’ve been just by Akai's reports (Akai and Oganok took to themself to tell her everything that happened since the collapse, so the AI wouldn't be distressed by the new turns if events.)

She knew of the Amrita project and was saddened by the failure of exodus black and blue. She revealed that 7 other fully stocked colony ship were launched along with exodus black (all named after colours) and many years before two prototypes , with only a skeleton crew launched to different star systems :the X02 enterprise to Fomalhaut (25 light years away) and the X03 tereshkova towards TRAPPIST 01 (39.6 light years away) the two prototypes were known to have reached their destination at the time INTENDANT was in construction ,however the records of the Amrita project were wiped off the archives of most computers (including Rasputin's ) so their status was unknown to anyone on Earth.

In the karnaca’s computer the project is extensively described though, the guardians were shocked to learn of the status of the Amrita project as of last update 2328 (just before the collapse)  
It reads as such:

Enterprise - launched 2067 (crew 110) , Fomalhaut b  
(25 ly away ,supposedly arrived in 2094)

Tereshkova - launched 2068 (crew 170) , TRAPPIST 1  
(39.6 ly away , comm buoy indicate engine damage on arrival in the system )

Exodus White - launched 2090 (crew+stasis 450) , Proxima centauri (4.244 light years away ,comm buoy indicate catastrophic damage to control systems in orbit of Alpha centaury b's larger moon)

Exodus Black - launched 2125 (crew+stasis 320)-crashed on nessus ,intended target Kepler 186 (582 light years away, 583 years at max warp)

Exodus Purple launched 2189 (crew+stasis 40 900) status unknown, intended target TRAPPIST 1e (39.6 light years ,41 years at max warp)

Exodus Yellow launched 2125 (c+s 3200) status unknown, intended target 82 G. Eridani b (19.71 light years away, 20 years at max warp)

Exodus Red - launched 2199 (c+s 40 878)status unknown, intended target HD 40307 g (41.8 light years away,39.5 years at max warp)

Exodus Pink - launched 2207 (c+s 45 120) intended for barnard's star (6 ly), status unknown

Exodus Green - launched 2327 (c+s 40 900) crashed in the awoken dimension, birthplace of the awoken .destination unknown

Exodus Blue - scheduled for 2329 (crew +stasis 250 000) , intended target Gliese 832 c (16.2 light years away ,5.3 years at max warp) never left.

Numiri was eager to meet each member of the crew , and, to their own surprise ,also called Charles and Michael and the newly activated third frame, who turned out to be the engine operator , hence the flexible body frame and high end limbs. The frame requested a name from the guardians, after several conversations with Michael and Charles , since she didn't have an official designation, being a prototype frame. Rosetta chose to name her Torres , as one of her obscure jokes (she was always making obscure pre collapse references from stuff she discovered researching her old identity , often picking these references from Failsafe)

\---

Talking to Numiri, Akai noticed that they wanted to see what Earth had become, and specifically old Russia, during their creation, Dr Pavlovna had spent so much time talking about her home that the Ai wanted to see it for themselves.  
Akai took her on a jumpship (it was Rosetta’s actually, because the Terracotta , Akai’s jumpship is strictly restricted to one passenger) to visit Earth, discovering in the process that the distance between Numiri’s body and the Karnaca could be as wide as Earth - Saturn without impacting in any way her control over the ship or the body.

Numiri tried to explain to Akai that it was because they had produced entangled particles and embedded them in both the AI core and the neural net of the Exo, but the little guardian was so focused on trying to hide who that new exo was that she didn’t listened to a word of it.

They had numerous details about the life of the late dr , little stories about where she grew up , where she went to university, her mom’s house near Zelenodolsk....  
Most of all Numiri wanted to see Dr Pavlovna’s house, where she had drawn the plans that would lead to her creation. The house was supposed to be in Kazan, a big city on the Volga.  
Flying over the region, the first thing Numiri noticed was how devoid of building the area was. Barren land, with the occasional trees, nothing more.

-what happened here… it was supposed to be beautiful…

-we know that during the collapse, a battleship crashed here , and when it did , the fusion reactor on it breached containment, erasing a zone three times the size of the last city from existence. Millions of people died , it was a horrible tragedy, nothing is left of it.

-does it cover the coordinates i gave you? 

-no, the explosion radius stops 350km before, however I must warn you, nobody on Earth lives in these cities anymore, they were targeted heavily during the collapse by eliksni forces, specifically the house of devils, I know they completely burned to the ground several capital cities of european and asian countries .

-I don’t expect my mother to be there you know…

Akai had noticed already that when emotional Numiri tended to refer to their maker as their mom, she thought it was cute . She also thought about how lonely the poor AI must have been during the past 700 years or so .  
They were arriving over the ruins of kazan, about a kilometer off the coordinates Numiri had provided, Akai let the commands to her ghost ,letting him perform the landing and turned around to look at Numiri . they were looking at their feet (as much as a face without eyes can look) , silently.  
Akai smiled at them and went to take them in her arms, in a tight hug.

-You’re not alone anymore, we’re here for you, I need you to know that.

Numiri was surprised to see how much they actually needed to hear that.

They returned the hug, keeping the embrace until the ship was landed

-thank you…

The quick walk to the house was made in silence, Akai was walking slowly, staying in cover most of the time, aiming her polaris lance at every new corner they went through, while Numiri was supposed to check the rear with a small handgun they had borrowed from her , but they were lost in thought, not really paying attention to what was happening.

Luckily for them, not much was happening, the ruins of the city (pretty well preserved by the way) were empty, no fallen, no hive, only the occasional foxes and hare, fleeing at incredible speeds upon seeing the two silhouettes arriving.

They both arrived at the house shortly after. The weather was changing quickly, the sky was turning dark and wind was rising, howling across the different buildings.

-we should get in, it’s gonna be a thunderstorm i think. 

Akai was looking at the sky with concerns, it was unsafe to fly out during a storm, unless they reached sufficient altitude quickly enough, but they had just arrived and she didn't want to go before Numiri had had a chance to contemplate his roots, if there was anything to find in this place.

Numiri was looking for the mailbox, trying to decipher a name on it, but 700 years of exposure to UV light had scrubbed any recognisable characters out of the metal box.  
The door was destroyed, it had probably been made of wood, it had roten away .

At the moment they both entered the building, thunder started to rumble in the sky, visibly close.

Rain followed about 20 seconds later.

-I’m glad we arrived on time!

Numiri did not respond, they weren’t really listening and this poor attempt at humor was just aimed at breaking the rising tension.

The house was a mess, most of the windows were broken, moss and tree roots were running across the entire floor, it was hard to recognise pretty much anything. The kitchen still had metallic vessels next to the sink, in what could have been a drier.  
Akai was kinda distressed by this , she really hoped they wouldn’t find a skeleton in the house, as that was a real possibility.

The stairs looked still solid enough to climb on them, so they progressed onto the first floor, still looking for anything that could talk to Numiri from their mother’s stories.

The room was pretty much a bust too, a frame was on the nightstand but what was on it wasn’t visible anymore, it had water damage (a branch from an outside tree was going through the entire room)  
The next room must have been an office, but it was in a much better state than the rest of the house, probably because the door was made of metal instead of wood.  
A very impressive number of books were on the shelves, some had fallen to the ground, where free papers were hanging, all covered in codes and schematics.

-this … this is the first version of my hardware, when i wasn’t even self aware yet.

They were pointing at a weird mass of wires and circuit boards, sitting next to a 3d printer.

-She made it all on her own, I was her dream…

Akai was looking around the room, impressed by how much amazing discoveries and inventions must had happened here, on the wall next to the drawing board was a huge poster, amazingly still hanging on the wall (maybe it was even painted on the wall) She recognized it immediately , having seen so many of them in the cosmodrome during her search for answers and identity seven years ago. It represented one of these early golden age propaganda posters for Space colonisation. The shape of the colony ship was off though, and the logo of the RFBA , which wasn’t even called that…

-do you recognise this logo? It looks like the RFBA but it’s not, and the ships don’t match either. She asked her ghost, who was scanning various things from a distance as to not disturb Numiri. They had switched back to russian, almost instinctively

-no idea, never heard of SSSR OKB-1. But I like the slogan though! “Soviet man – be proud, in the name of peace, you opened the road to stars from Earth” sure sounds cool! What’s a soviet though?

-we’ve seen this with Anya , old Russia was called the union of socialist soviet republic in the 20th century, when humanity first achieved spaceflight. Do you listen to anything she says?

-I actively try not to listen to hours of kissing noises and intimate conversation no.

-...Fair point… 

The young woman was blushing under her helmet, she knew her ghost could sense it. Things had been going pretty great with Ana lately, her friends had helped her worked the courage to ask her to make their flirting a bit more “official”, they had now been dating for a month or so, and honestly it was good for her, her self esteem and mood were excellent lately, a nice change of pace the little ghost thought.  
She also had told her about the Karnaca, (in direct violation of what the team had agreed by the way) which had surprised Ana Bray and piqued her interest deeply. She was waiting for the right moment to tell the rest of the crew about it , but she was afraid of the potential repercussions it would entail.  
Oganok would never betray her of course, but Numiri was often so excited that they forgot they weren’t supposed to tell secrets to specific persons so it was just best not to tell them for now ( can’t spill secrets you don’t know them)

Numiri was kneeling on the ground, reading one of the journals they had found on the floor , clearly too invested in their reading to notice the other two arguing.  
When they spoke, none of them were expecting it.

-these are her journals, she wrote about how she felt in the early years of my creation, her meeting with the people who would then become the SKADI project, she redacted all the names and locations but it’s almost as if she was here again , telling me about herself…

They turned to Oganok 

-Can you make a full 3d scan of the room , I’m gonna want to revisit it in holo, also can you dematerialise all of these ?

They were pointing at all the books , journals and drawings, even at the weird contraption they had described earlier. 

-I think I’m ready to go , there's nothing more for me here, my path lays ahead now, not behind.

-we have time to explore the rest of house if you want

-it’s fine, the second floor was completely destroyed by a lightning strike several hundred years ago, I scanned it while I was reading.

-you have access to the ship’s sensors from here?

-yeah of course, I’m designed to be able to scan whole star systems from light years away, , the karnaca isn’t even 9 AU away, that’s like 100 m for your eyes.

-could have told me that when i was running from cover to cover in the streets for nothing earlier…

-oh ,my bad.

-you wanna go home?

Numiri nodded and the three of them exited the room, going back down the partially destroyed stairs and living room after dematerialising most of the books and intact objects in the office.  
Once outside , Numiri took Oganok apart (Akai was not too happy about that, It’s HER ghost dammit) and in a very soft voice that she couldn't hear asked him to make something for them.  
A good minute later, the ghost was synthesizing a small plaque near the entrance of the house, made from titanium nitride, engraved with the inscription in Russian :

“Dr Nadejda Pavlovna 2297-2329”  
“Inventor, mother, dreamer”  
‘’Mother, be proud, in the name of love, you opened the road to the stars from Earth once again.”

On the left top side was a small engraving of the SKADI project logo, where instead of the simple line that composed the “arrow” this time a spaceship like on the poster in the room upstairs was speeding to unknown space.  
The plaque was beautiful 

-Oh , this is … very nice! Mertsat’ can you add the translation in Eliksni too on the column?

-they appreciate commemorative plaques? Numiri enquired

-I don’t know but they may not try to scavenge it that way.

Numiri nodded in agreement, then in less than a second completely changed his posture , they had drawn their weapon too.

-two Eliksni skiffs incoming from the 240, speed mach 3.2 and dropping, their approach vector is clear, it’s us. Do you wish to engage?

-Depends ,ETA? 

-between 4 and 5 minutes .

-we’re not engaging, they are probably just curious, I see no reason to provoke them.

Using her telepathic link, she sent Oganok to warm up the engines of the ship , gaining time as the little ghost could fly very fast if he wanted to.  
The guardian and the exo ran after him as the skiffs were already in auditory range, they had to decelerate to be able to drop troops and the noise it made in the low atmosphere was like a low vibration in the air.  
The ship was already hovering a meter off the ground when they reached it, when they jumped aboard, the two skiffs were stationary about 100 m from their position.  
A dozen vandals and dregs were dropping, weapons in hands but this time no shots were fired, they let the jumpship go without trouble.

In the ship, Numiri was contemplating the picture of the old soviet poster Oganok was projecting. 

-thanks for doing this for me Akai.

-That’s what family is for! She answered with a big smile

-I think I found my sigil!

He was pointing at the rocket on the poster.

\--------------------  
A few weeks later, Akai sat down with her team to tell them the truth.

-I’m not mad at you, I just think this is the kind of decision you should have consulted us about beforehand. Ana isn’t fond of the Vanguard either, specifically after what happened with Rasputin and Xol two years ago so I don’t think it’s such a security risk, but that’s not the point. When the security and safety of the whole team , the whole crew -she pointed at the frames and Numiri- is at stake, I kinda expect you , all of us for that matter, to bring it to us, not just keep it to yourself.

Deidra was the only one speaking, she was right of course, but still Akai had been afraid to tell the truth , she had feared it would put a wedge between them.  
Rosetta , on the other hand, was a bit angry, not that she had spilled the beans to her girlfriend, something she could understand, but that she didn’t tell them afterwards.  
She spoke directly , in her own voice, something she wasn’t particularly doing often.

-Like we’re not gonna punish you, we’re not the vanguard or the city milicia, we’re your friends, your family! I’m just sad you couldn’t trust us.

-I do trust you! That’s why I AM telling you! Ana could be a great asset on the project, she could help us get the ship in the air , and she’s a senior guardian, well renown among our people, her presence at our side when we reveal the ship could be beneficial!

-that’s the thing, we agree on this, that’s not the issue here!

-I know, I’m sorry.  
She really was feeling bad about this. She wasn’t aware her friends had already forgiven her.

-I don’t really want to interact with RASPUTIN though, I’ve seen his code, I don’t trust him.

Numiri was standing at the conference table in the CIC , everybody was looking at them.

-I mean he has the ability to syphon off data like I did in the computers of this complex, but on a much larger scale, anything built by Clovis bray exoscience can be downloaded into himself, even full AI, to augment his abilities.

-he could absorb you???  
-what the fuck?

-I’m not sure actually, one of the reason I was built here in secret was to have complete freedom over my code and my mainframe , I’m not built under the same parameters, we operate on very different levels, so technically I could be completely incompatible with him, and frankly I hope so.

-fucked up if true! Torres was pretty upset with these revelations

-that pretty much settles it , no contact with RASPUTIN! -Deidra was not gonna let their friend get hurt like that, not on her watch.

Silence fell back in the conference room, everyone was processing the new data they all got.  
Torres, the engineer, was the first to speak again:

-soooo you’re gonna bring Ana Bray here? I’m curious to meet her!

-yeah you never shut up about her, it’s time we do get to see her outside of the braytech complex on mars! 

Rosetta and Torres bursted out in laughter, they knew Akai would blush and inevitably , her face had turned a funny shade of purple. Internally the young guardian was relieved by how well the confrontation went. Sure she got yelled at (not really actually) a bit but she was so happy to see things would go back to the great ambiance of camaraderie they had been building on the ship since they started repairs a year ago.

\--

Ana came to discover the Karnaca about a week later (she had managed to get away from Mars for several days, the cabal incursions seemed to have diminished thanks to all the guardians running around doing escalation protocols 24/7)  
Everyone was working on the ship except Deidra who was on a mission in the dreaming city.

-when I discovered it the Ice was seeping through the open airlock, and the rest was completely incased in it, almost to this point.

Akai, Oganok, Ana and Jinju (Ana’s ghost) were standing in the hangar , now completely cleared and with the blast doors repaired and closed. The small guardian was pointing to where on the ship the ice had advanced over the centuries.

She was giving them the outside tour of the ship after quickly running through the complex (which was mostly empty anyway.)  
-I’m not an expert in ships but these engine exhaust look super weird, nothing like I’ve seen before , what kind of sublight propulsion does it use?

-we’re not really sure actually, we think the impulse engines are a combination of magnetoplasma propulsion and radio frequency resonant cavity thruster, but we don’t see how the two can work together. The simulation we’ve done gives us a net thrust of approximately 233,100 kn by engine, and we have two. By comparison that’s about twelve times the thrust of the Saturn V rocket. 

Spaceship propulsion was one of the interest of Akai but not really of Ana, she was a Psycholinguist (or had been) , what Akai had just said could very well have been another language , she had no idea what she was talking about and regretted asking a question she had no real interest in.

-that’s … a lot I guess?

Jinju appeared over them both.

-that’s probably the most powerful engine ever designed, I’m amazed at how simple the design is!

-Didn't know Jinju was into spaceship designs!

-she likes engineering of any kind t+really, but this is the first time i see her salivate this much over an engine yes!

The two guardians laughed while the little ghost was flying in for a closer look into the exhaust.

They kept laughing and smiling while visiting the inside of the ship.  
Ana was holding Akai’s hand, which made her blush like crazy when they were speaking to other crew members.

-The bridge is where the action will happen when we finally get this baby off the ground! I’m at the conn normally , so far in the simulations I think I'm getting the hang of it but I can’t wait to take it for a real spin !

-what’s with the design? The ship looks like it was designed for a king or something? Like these statues? Ooooh are they representing a lion and a Hawk? Like the emblems? That’s cool! Do you have one too?

-nah , I don’t really like snakes, I think it sucks as the symbol for hunters.

The door opened and numiri entered the room.

-Nice to meet you Anastasia ! Akai has told us a great deal about you! It’s really an honor to be in your presence! 

-the honor is all mine , It’s not everyday I get to meet another golden age AI! You’re so different from Rasputin ! And Failsafe!

-I wasn’t so different from Failsafe at the beginning to be honest, the difference is I have access to my core programming, I can Evolve , change, adapt, my mother made me so i could grow up and learn from my experiences. I’m so glad I get to meet other people now, It’s so much fun to be around other people again! And this body is great!! 

-do you retain any memories of the previous mind of this exo? Or how it ended up on Enceladus?

-the quantum black box was completely blank, and the body showed absolutely no signs of previous usage, I’m not sure this unit was ever put into the field, or that it even ever reached deep stone crypt.

-you know about deep stone crypt? Did your mother tell you about it? 

-she worked for clovis bray Exoscience for 6 years before quitting , she told me she was in disagreement about fundamental aspect of her work there, as far as I know she did work on some top secret project there, but I have no idea if it was RASPUTIN or the EXO projects.  
She did meet you in your past life though.

-what?? You never told me that!!

Akai was shocked to learn of this just now, especially because she had asked that exact question before.  
Ana was more calm about it, she had read a lot of files pertaining of her past life, but since she didn’t remember any of it herself, she was more researching the life of another person than her own.

-that’s amazing, did she say anything about me? Do you know if I knew about your existence?

-she once told me of her old coworkers, and there’s a log on you directly, she respected you a great deal, she seemed to think you were the best of your field, a true genius and an honest woman. She also mentioned how good your hair smelled.

A silence fell into the room , several seconds passed, then Ana exploded into laughter.  
Akai was giving the killer look to Numiri, who seemed pleased with their reveals.

-hahah ha.. Ana was putting her hands on her eyes to dry the tears of laughter she had made, catching her breath. Do you think I dated your mother in my past life? That would be SO funny!!

-I may have her voice but I do not have her memories. I guess we'll never know, they added with a smile.

The rest of the visit went pretty much the same way, Ana was really enjoying the tour, the ship was amazing, she had a special interest in the pool on deck 1 and she really enjoyed seeing the AI core , really impressed with how it was designed to let the AI manage the flux of data and energy of the ship directly.  
Each crew members they met took immense pleasure in giving Ana embarrassing stories about Akai . she had only met Rosetta and Deidra before , on Earth and on Mars during the Nokris brood crisis, this time she was meeting the whole family, and they really were behaving like one, all adding their own personal trivia about Akai, nothing bad, mostly funny little things, habit, things of the sort. Ana was happy to be there.

Several hours later, after they all had shared a meal in the mess , Akai and Ana were alone in the lounge on deck one, they were upstairs, leaning on the balustrade, next to the piano. The small guardian had turned on the screen/ window of the lounge, it was showing a sunset near the sea instead of the hangar. The light and ambiance it created was truly magnificent.

-i kinda want to get in , you know, a quick dip!  
Ana was looking enviously at the pool.  
Akai looked at her , smiled , took a running start and jumped over the balustrade , transforming her clothes into her swimsuit mid-air , she gathered her limbs close to her to make a waterbomb. she splashed down in the pool making a huge noise and splashing water everywhere.

-no fair I don’t have one on me!  
Ana was shouting from the mezzanine.  
-I don’t see that as a problem! Answer akai who had reappeared on the surface and was looking at her girlfriend with a big smile.  
Ana nodded at Jinju, the ghost hastily replaced her armor with a simple shirt and underwear . She wasn't even completely done when Ana double jumped off the balustrade , reaching even higher than Akai before, she impacted even harder than her , this time putting water really everywhere in the downstairs lounge.  
They played for a bit with the water before cuddling near the stairs.

-Dr Pavlovna was absolutely right though!

-about what? 

-your hair really does smell so good!

The young woman tightened her embrace to get Ana even closer , giving her a little kiss on the back of the head.

Ana didn’t respond but she reached backward to grab her hand , taking it into her own and slowly leaning her cheek into it.

Akai , usually so shy and flustered around her, was feeling so loved at this moment, she almost wanted to cry, to have this moment last forever, in a loving embrace.

They were both holding on to each other tightly, looking at the sun slowly setting over the ocean.

\------------

The crew was now organised as such

Captain: Deidra and Blacksmith  
Primary Tactical: Michael  
Conn: Akai and Oganok  
Sensors & secondary Tactical: Rosetta and Artemis  
Transmat and comms: Numiri (INTENDANT)  
Armory quartermaster: Michael  
Engineering: Torres  
Mess and hydroponics: Charles and sobek

The garden was going along nicely, the seeds had blossomed into full grown plants in the past year and almost all the species were thriving in the environment of the hydroponics lab (some ambitious grafts attempted by Charles and Sobek had failed , but most of them had worked and now they had fresh fruit pretty much whenever they wanted)

At first Deidra wanted to reallocate the living quarters to fit the new "recruits" but the three frames refused because they simply do not sleep. Deidra insisted that they had a place to call their own on the ship, with their stuff, what they chose to carry with them, so the three frames chose to settle the upper lounge with their quarters .

Numiri chose to settle the CIC on deck 3 , just on top of the bridge, on the same deck as Rosetta's forge. they were very fond of the interactive map in the middle, unlike many other systems, it wasn't based on holographic technology, all the parts were real,non Newtonian fluid capable of changing shape and colour with the help of extremely localised gravity fields. This technology allowed the depiction of star systems or planets, even other ships with incredible details and accuracy, allowing for exceptional precision in navigation and tactical planning.

The ship was still grounded, but Deidra insisted they ran drills on various situations, to familiarize themselves with the ship’s controls and to work together outside of a battlefield.  
Numiri was able to project realistic scenarios randomized on the windows of the bridge to help with the realism. By the 30th drill they all knew exactly what to do and when.

\---  
New looks

After a month of uninterrupted life on the ship (it wasn't space or airworthy yet but they were already using it as their main base, on Enceladus),they all felt like running around the ship in full gear and armor was pointless, even uncomfortable.  
So they devised some new looks from the stuff they brought with them, and with the matter resequencer onboard made new clothes to wear on the ship, either in everyday life or for combat training.  
Rosetta designed the new uniforms, with help from Numiri huge database on Earth's fashion and some input from the ghosts (they were after all well versed in the art of creation)  
She suggested every branch of work there is on the ship to be rescinded in colours ( these are actually the three guardians favourite colours) . At first Akai wanted the same uniforms for everyone but her ghost convinced her that personalised ones would be so much cooler (he was right)  
The frames and Numiri incorporated pieces of fabric or paint directly applied to fit their branch (they were pretty excited about being treated like every other member of the crew. Indeed when they were working with the SKAĐI project almost nobody even talked to them, only the head scientist, dr Pavlovna, was courteous , nice even towards them, probably being the only one with a good grasp on their actual emotional capabilities)

While making repairs in main engineering , a power surge burned off most of Rosetta's hair, and when her ghost was prepping to heal them back to original form, she decided it was time to get some changes in her hairdo (before that she had long locks)  
She then asked Deidra to cut them correctly (as not to keep the burned off bits)  
Seeing the new haircut made Akai envious so she also asked her captain to cut her hair, substantially shorter, buzzed on the sides.  
Deidra also adopted a more practical hairdo : channeling her huge hair mass in several braids. As to get into her helmet faster.(also because she did think it was time for a bit of change, she had been adorning the same hairdo for the past 30 years after all)

All of their armors were modified to handle the vacuum, temperatures and cosmic radiations , resulting in a slightly altered look of their gear (Rosetta went HAM with her own armor, having access to so much golden age tech. She rigged everyone's armor with small warsat shell nodules, effectively giving everyone a passive repulsive shield.)

-now I repeat , it does not make you immune to projectiles, only direct melee attacks, as such:

Rosetta was standing in the middle of the dojo , everyone was gathered at her request in order for her to demonstrate her new designs. Akai had volunteered to help her demonstrate, she was wearing her new armor, where she had dropped the cloak , almost a blasphemous thing for a Hunter. This way everyone could see the back of the armor, where most of the modifications had been integrated, an oxygen supply, a way more efficient heat dispersal unit, and what they were showing at this specific moment, the warsat nodules.

Rosetta executed a perfect reverse roundhouse kick , which with her strength could have obliterated the small guardian, but no , Akai was, force of habit, in a perfect defense position. The second the kick touched her a wave of energy Launched Rosetta almost 3 meters away. Probably because she was expecting it, she landed gracefully in a perfectly executed roll.

The whole assembly was clapping.

-is the strength of the hit proportional to the energy field it counters it with?  
Numiri and Torres were expressing great interest in the tech, with reason, technically they were the less experienced fighters on board, even if they did have a 2 h training session each day with Deidra.

-yes and no, the first hit you’ll probably feel, it needs to be charged,here it was because we’ve been testing it all day, but imagine you’re surrounded by cabal war beasts or thralls and you need a second to recharge or change weapon, you can easily repel huge numbers of enemy attacking you in hand to hand this way.

-now there’s also a moderate jet pack , which is not built for normal gravity ignition, you’d just burn all the fuel for nothing. It’s designed for micro gravity navigation, with this you’ll never be caught drifting in zero g or low gravity, to give you an edge in space combat or to allow us to easily do EVA’s if the need arises.

-bet that you included that because of that time you ate ass on the almighty!

-what do you bet? -Rosetta asked with a smile

-loser makes pancakes tomorrow morning, for everyone!

-Ha! Better start cooking, it was during the strike on Phobos during the taken war!

Akai pouted.

-The one you overshot your fists of havoc jump and ended up 3 km away?

-Well thanks a lot DEIDRA for letting everyone know!

Deidra chuckled

-my pleasure “Pachakawri Rumi “

She blew a kiss toward Rosetta, with a playful smile . she had used a nickname Rosetta had received many years ago when she was still a striker (arc user among titans) , she had impacted the ground so hard on a fallen walker during a rescue mission in northern chile that she had created not only a small earthquake but a 30 meter radius crater, which to this day was still visible. The civilians she had rescued that day called her “the meteor” in quechua because of it .  
Deidra had turned that story into a short song, but very few knew it was directly about her teammate Rosetta. 

-ANYHOW , anybody got questions ?  
Artemis was trying to prevent the conversation from drifting even further away.  
Michael raised her hands tentatively 

-yes Micah?

-Could we not simply incorporate this shield into our own bodies? That would make us synthetics a lot safer in any situation.

-you can if you want to, but keep in mind the shield is always charging up, and every impact, as small as walking every bit of static charge you accumulate ,will need to eventually be discharged, and I would personally prefer if it’s not when we give you a hug!

-oh there is no off switch? Michael looked at Akai, then at Rosetta, remembering how she , despite her mass, had flown across the room . Yeah that could be bad.

-not really, at least not yet, or more accurately if i switch it off completely i need to remove the power nodule , which i do already when i’m in armor on the ship.

-the tech is still experimental, I’m sure I’ll eliminate the bugs and nuisances like this one in time, but for now it would be better if we limit the use of the shield to EVA’s and combat situations.

-understandable.  
-yeah seems reasonable, I don’t want to blow away my dinner . Numiri had recently started eating, they had discovered that the exo body was perfectly capable of processing food and that they had just as many sensors dedicated to taste, texture of heat in their mouths. They were delighted by this and were spending a lot of time in the mess with Charles tasting different foods.

NOTES

Vocabulary  
Destiny specific terms:

The Traveler: sort of planet shaped deity (smaller than Pluto), hovering silently over the last city on Earth. It uplifted Humanity with technologies in the early/mid 21st century. Supposedly it is ageless, traveling among the stars uplifting species.

-the Last City : technically “the last safe city on earth” a gigantic city built under the Traveler in the mountains of Chile , located near the modern town of Uspallata. It is not however the only settlement. Only a third of humanity lives here

-the collapse: "the end of the world" a general collapse of all infrastructure and countries in the 2320 due to an overwhelming alien invasion . Almost all intel on the actual events is lost.

-Guardian : warriors resurrected from dead bodies by a ghost to wield the light (energy) as a weapon to defend Earth and humanity. They have no memories of their previous life, only their bodies.(the protagonists of the game)

-Ghost: little AI in the form of a little star , no bigger than a grapefruit, they were created by the Traveler before it went into silence, they are tasked with finding "their" guardian and bring them back to life.

-Titan : subclass of Guardian, they usually are big and smart, their main asset is raw power and resilience. They wield specific powers that no other classes can use 

-Hunter :subclass of Guardian , they usually are small and agile, their main asset is speed and marksmanship. They wield specific powers that no other classes can use (like double jump, they can take a second jump mid air to reach higher)

-Warlock: subclass of guardians: they usually are mysterious and focused on research. Their main asset is versatility and understanding of the Light . They wield specific powers that no other classes can use

-Engram: new state of matter, where mass disappears into information only. One of the major discoveries of the golden age.

-Arc/Solar/Void : the three types of energy the Light turns into , the first one manifests itself as electricity, the second fire and the third as dimensional flux

-RFBA (РФБА in Russian) the name of the Russian space administration in the golden age, the logo is visible in a great number of place in the game, along with some space colonisation propaganda decrepit murals . The soviet poster though is a real one from the 70’s, with a real slogan. 

-Warmind : a network of highly powerful AI (or a single AI controlling it all, it is unclear) controlling the defenses of the solar system.

-RASPUTIN : a warmind, a highly specialized and powerful artificial intelligence designed to protect Humanity from potential outside threats . it’s real motives are unknown.

-EXO: robotic body allegedly designed as a soldier , made to house a human mind.

-Sparrow: basically a hover-motorcycle. One person vehicle use by guardians on the field.

-Braytech : Clovis Bray technologies and Clovis Bray exosciences, the leading edge of technological advancement during the golden age. They created the EXO’s and the Warminds

-The vanguard : Elite guardians (three of them, one of each class) who coordinate the last city’s defenses, organize assaults on enemy strongholds and assassinations of their leaders, and mentor newly-risen Guardians. Some Guardians work directly for the Vanguard as scouts, investigating potential threats to the City far afield.

-Zavala : titan member of the vanguard, a good man, yet vehemently opposed to the idea of guardians digging into their own past.

-Kinderguardians: how freshly risen guardians are called by everyone else.

-Frame: a frame is a robotic body , not made to look like a human (although it is of humanoid structure -2 arms two legs, a head in the middle of shoulders) most frames do not have a personality programmed into them, some do.

-Skiff: Eliksni dropship, containing from 3 to 10 soldiers. 

The five alien species of the collapse: 

-Eliksni (fallen) :one of the five Alien species who came to the Sol system during/after the collapse. they are not a unified specie, their people are separated in great houses, often warring with each others  
they have four arms and two legs, as well as four eyes. Their story is very similar to humanity.

-The Hive: The Hive are a race of insectoid aliens that worship and serve the Darkness.They also follow the teachings of the Deep, specifically a principle known as The Sword Logic.(the strong devours the weak…) they house a race of worms in their bodies , whom they revere as gods.

-the cabal: The Cabal are a warmongering race of giant bipedal humanoids with a heavy-set, rhinoceros-like appearance. Their ever expanding Empire spreads through organization, efficiency, and corruption.

-Vex: The Vex have been described as a "hyperintelligent time-spanning thought-mesh", a collective mind composed of countless component intelligences distributed across time and space. The mobile Vex machines encountered by Guardians are merely containers for these intelligences, which carry mind cores filled with milky radiolarian fluid - hypothesized to be the only remnant of their distant biological origin

-the Taken: not a species per se, they are a state of being, The Taken are Darkness-corrupted entities originating from multiple species warped into another dimension called and altered to serve their given purpose. Once used by Oryx, The taken king (now dead) as his personal army, they have more recently been utilized by other powerful Darkness-aligned entities. They have no will of their own. 

Astronomy terms:

Enceladus: The sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It is about 500 kilometres in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most reflective bodies of the Solar System

Titan (moon) :Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest natural satellite in the Solar System. It is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere.in the Destiny universe it was settled by humans in huge floating biospheres called Arcologies .

AU: astronomical unit, roughly 150 million kilometres (the average distance between the Earth and the Sun)

Nessus: unstable centaur in a transneptunian orbit, sometime closer than Pluto, sometimes much farther away. it's a destination in the game ( and a real celestial body in our solar system)

Acronyms and initialisms:

ETA: estimated time of arrival 

HUD: head’s up display, in this case mounted inside the helmet.

EVA: extravehicular activity, basically a space walk to repair something in space or to reach another location through space.

Since every guardian/characters are of different origins, they all have a “mother tongue” they sometime revert to when speaking, together they all speak quechua or english (and i write it in english because i do not speak quechua) it’s specified in skills in the crew manifest but here it goes, in details:

Akai’s natural language is Russian, she uses it for endearing terms an general expressions (that I’m writing in latin characters because i want you people to hear it) It is also Numiri’s and Torres’s natural languages

Russian :

Mertsat: “sparkle/twinkle” affectionate russian word Akai use to call her ghost.

Bolje: “god/lord” while not religious, an expression used by Akai when in disbelief.

Dorogaya moya: my dear in russian

Quechua:

Pachakawri Rumi : meteorite


End file.
